"Carrie Richerson - Artistic License" - читать интересную книгу автора (Richardson Carrie)

She didn't flinch away from my appearance, and her face didn't take on that
frozen look of a person trying not to betray disgust or horror. I couldn't see
her eyes behind her dark glasses, but the tiny movements of her head told me she
was studying me from top to bottom. My father used to say that my face was a map
of his Italian birthplace: the Tuscan Apennines of ropy tissue curving across my
left temple, the wine-dark stain spreading across my right cheek the Ligurian
Sea, the Arno splitting my face like a scar, and Florence, beloved Firenze, in
the middle. He liked my nose. I let Beatrice Holzman explore the map of my face
while I studied her in turn.

Before age had stooped her, she had owned the raw-boned height and sturdiness of
her sharecropper's heritage. Her frizzy white hair was gathered under a floppy
sun hat, and she wore long sleeves, even in this heat, to cover the pale
blotches on her arms. Large, gnarled hands, showing a tracery of blue veins
against the faded mahogany skin, clasped one another quietly in her lap. Her
face, like mine, was a life-map. Deep wrinkles creased the drooping cheeks, and
her nose, as hooked as a harriet's beak, was crooked by some old injury. That
chin had never retreated, that jaw had never known surrender. There was nothing
beautiful about the face that had graced the covers of dozens of financial and
news magazines, but no picture could convey the sense of power that radiated
from her.

Then she took off her sunglasses, and I was ambushed. A web of fine wrinkles, as
delicate as the crazing in dark, old porcelain, netted twin chunks of improbable
frost-shot blue, edged with green -- like one of the icebergs Frederick Church
so loved to paint. The effect was one of simultaneous clarity and depth,
something I'd like to capture in a landscape someday. Maybe a great sculpted
glacier. . . .

I never had a chance. I think I fell in love on the spot.

A lifetime's practice in reading people, augmented by her trace of Talent, must
have told her of the effect she was having on me. The crow's feet around her
eyes crinkled; it was the only sign of her amusement, but it was enough to break
the spell. I snapped back into myself and felt my face grow hot with anger and
embarrassment. She wasn't the only control freak on that veranda; I hate feeling
that vulnerable. I glared my resentment at her and turned to leave.

She stopped me with two words: "I apologize." She didn't sound like she had much
practice at apologizing. "Please forgive my bad manners, Miss Ligeri. I
sometimes forget there are ways to deal with people other than manipulation."
What did she want so badly that she was willing to be so humble? Or was the
humility just part of the manipulation ? I turned around, curious and wary. "I
have a business proposition to discuss with you. Will you sit?"

Someone had thoughtfully provided a footstool to help me into the adjacent
chair. I sat. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe that was Holzman's
Talent: to convince people that her ideas were their ideas. Simple. Effective. I
summoned all my defenses and sat there as prickly as a hedgehog.